Tag Archives: Internet misinformation

Michelle Obama’s “Can’t Run Your Own House” Quote was NOT aimed at Hillary Clinton

by

J.C. Schildbach, LMHC

In his commencement speech to the 2016 graduating class of Stanford, Ken Burns updated an old adage, noting that the Internet “permits a lie to circle the globe three times before the truth can get started.”

In an era of politics-by-meme, a lie can spread quickly, along with a clever image or a video clip making the lie seem that much more substantial. The people who see/hear the lie, and want to believe the underlying message, are quick to “like” it and “share” it across their own social media feeds. No need to check on the verity of the information, although such a check would take only a few seconds and a Google search, and the person sharing the item is already using the Internet at the time s/he decides to spread the virus.

It is in this spirit of intentional dissemination of misinformation that a brief video clip has been resurrected, purporting to show “Michelle Obama TRASHING Hillary Clinton in 2008”—feel free to add as many exclamation points, emojis, and OMGs as you like.

I won’t link to any of the various versions of this clip, simply to avoid giving them any additional traction or movement—however minor.

At any rate, the (very brief) clip shows Michelle Obama, saying, “So our view was that, if you can’t run your own house, you certainly can’t run the White House.” Most newer versions of this meme pretend-contrast this with Ms. Obama’s recent DNC speech wherein she talks about trusting Hillary Clinton.

The big lie, of course, is that the 2008 clip is about Hillary Clinton. Given the full context, it is obvious that Michelle Obama was speaking about her own family, and how she and her husband maintain a balance between their career obligations, and their responsibilities as parents.

Here is the full quote:

So our view was that, if you can’t run your own house, you certainly can’t run the White House. So, we’ve adjusted our schedules to make sure that our girls are first, so while he’s traveling around, I do day trips. That means I get up in the morning, I get the girls ready, I get them off, I go and do trips, I’m home before bedtime. So the girls know that I was gone somewhere, but they don’t care. They just know that I was at home to tuck them in at night, and it keeps them grounded, and children, the children in our country have to know that they come first. And our girls do and that’s why we’re doing this. We’re in this race for not just our children, but all of our children.

And here it is in meme form (note, the picture is NOT at all related to the speech the quote is taken from—but, gee whiz, look at how that White House podium ties it all together—so long as you don’t think about why Michelle Obama would be giving a speech at the White House in 2008):

Sorry it’s not a short, punchy meme. Context can get in the way of brevity and punchiness. At any rate, you should be able to just drag and drop the meme, so you can share it anywhere, or, hell, share this whole post—especially in the comments section of anyone who is circulating the lie. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.

I won’t go into why any thinking person would believe that eight seconds of a speech, completely out of context, means what some politically-motivated, usually anonymous source, says it means. We all believe what we want to believe. And we’ve seen it before. Who didn’t build what, again?

I could go on about how creating and disseminating misinformation—particularly when the truth is known and easily accessed—is deplorable, ethically and morally bankrupt, and a violation of the social contract; but since we’re expanding on the context of quotes, I’ll go back to that opening quote and let Ken Burns get this one (from a larger context where he actually IS talking about Donald Trump):

“The sense of commonwealth, of shared sacrifice, of trust, so much a part of American life, is eroding fast, spurred along and amplified by an amoral Internet that permits a lie to circle the globe three times before the truth can get started.”

So, maybe…just maybe…check that meme out before you share it, even if it does feel truthy to you.